280 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK III. particular indulgence for the cutting of his woods at pleasure, though a 

 great iron-master, because he so ordered his works that they were a means 

 even of preserving his woods, notwithstanding those insatiable devourers. 

 This may appear a paradox, but it is to be made out ; and I have heard 

 my own father (whose estate was none of the least wooded in England) 

 affirm, that a forge, and some other mills, to which he furnished much 

 fuel, were a means of maintaining and improving his woods ; I suppose 

 by increasing the industry of planting and care, as what he left standing 

 of his own planting, inclosing and cherishing, (lately in the possession of 

 my most honoured brother George Evelyn, of Wotton, in the same 

 county, and now in mine,) did (before the late hurricane) sufficiently 

 evince : a most laudable monument of his industry and rare example : 

 for without such an example, and such an application, I am no advocate 

 for iron-works, but a declared denouncer. But Nature has thought fit 

 to produce this wasting ore more plentifully in woodland than any other 

 ground, and to enrich our forests to their own destruction : 



O semper bona pauperies ! et conditus alta 

 Thesaurus tellure nocens ! O semper ovantes, 



Integrse, salvaeque solo non divite sylvae ! Couleii PI. lib. vi. 



O poverty ! still safe ; and therefore found 

 Insep'rably with mischiefs under ground I 

 Woods tall and reverend, from all time appear 

 Inviolable, where no mine is near. 



For so our sweet poet deplores the fate of the forest of Dean. 



Our own law makes it waste to cut down high trees (though they be 

 not properly timber) standing for safe-guard and defence of a mansion- 

 house, though it be done for necessary repairs; whilst yet many (and with 

 reason) hold it unhealthful to suffer a dwelling to be choked with trees, 

 for want of free passage to the air. To remedy this, there needs only a. 

 competent distance to be left void. But, as a noble person * observes, 

 conom. people in these days are so disposed to quarrel with timber, as there shall 

 need no advice to demolish trees about their houses upon this account: in 

 the mean time, as to the encroachment of trees so near our dwellings, for 

 the freer intercourse of air, the late dreadful silvifragi storms have cleansed 

 those places by a remedy worse than the disease, sufficient to deter us from 



• Lord North 



